One With Nature

How it began: 3

Now, naturally, when you look at your reflection and see that you turned into some kind of tree monster, there's only one reasonable response.

"aaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Which is to scream like a little girl.

After a few hours of trying and failing to convince myself that I was dreaming - which may or may not have included bashing my head on the floor in a desperate attempt to wake up from this crazy dream - I finally sat down and thought over my situation.

"Okay, okay, calm down," I said holding my head.

It was weird, I felt the pain of bashing it on the ground, but there was no lingering pain. It just felt... weird. The wood knocking sound didn't exactly help my mentality.

"Alright, so, I somehow woke up and found myself like... this," I said while leaning over to look at my reflection in the pond again. "Let's try to find a bright side... okay... I got nothing," I groaned as I leaned back with my hands on my face.

I just couldn't see a bright side to this situation. I was in the middle of nowhere, looking nothing like a human, no idea where the closest civilization is, and God knows if there is one around to begin with.

"Alright, enough moping around," I said standing up, my limbs letting out that speaking sound. "I'm definitely not gonna get anything just sitting here and whining," I said as I placed my hands on my waist. "I'm gonna get out there and see-"

*Growl*

"W-Who's there!?" I turned around after hearing the terrifying sound.

Thinking back at it. It's embarrassing that I was scared by something as simple as a sound. Thank god this was before that troll vampire was born. If he ever knew about this, he'll never let me live it down.

I kept looking around for the source of the sound when it finally came out from the forest between the trees.

I don't even know what to call that creature. It looked like some weird, wild species of dog. It was definitely way bigger than normal canines, and it's fur had red stripes.

What struck me the most is the way it was looking at me. Or, at least in my general direction. I guess it would be hard for an animal to immediately notice me. I probably smelled like wood and it probably just thought I was just a weird looking tree.

"I-I'm warning you," talking, especially threatening, was probably not my best choice since all that was make sure that thing's eyes finally focus on me and start growling.

But honestly, I couldn't exactly say I was calm enough to do anything rational. I was freaking out. I woke up out in the middle of nowhere, didn't look human, and now some dog monster is growling at me.

I have the right to panic!

I took a step back, which was an even worse decision than speaking because it probably showed that thing that I was scared. That's all animals in the wild need to attack you.

It started walking towards me, building up speed before it started running.

Before I knew it, there was barely any distance between us. "Ah!" I reacted naturally, which is raising my hand in an attempt of self defence.

And then, my hand grew. Literally. It rapidly grew everywhere in the form of spikes, all of which were pointing at the dog-thing. One of the spikes got far enough to stab it in its shoulder.

That was thankfully enough to make that thing jump back and scare it off into running away.

Seriously, if anyone I know found out that I was scared of something like THAT in the past, they would never let me live it down, not just the troll vampire.

Slowly, my hand started returning to normal. Well, not human normal but at least what it looked like a few minutes ago.

I couldn't help but stare in awe at what just happened. "Okay... so maybe there's a bright side after all," I said looking at my arms.

That was actually one of the most normal things that happened in my life afterwards. And that's saying a lot.